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Date
One of the key trends in project management now (as it should be!) is the idea of value delivery. The 7th Edition PMBOK® Guide has a chapter called “A System for Value Delivery”. Thought leaders like Alexandra Chapman, Dr. Harold Kerzner, and Carlos Serra have been talking about this for countless years.
It seems that their thoughts have finally been brought to action.
One aspect of value delivery is the idea that projects need to be firmly linked to the mission, vision, and values of an organization.
This post is about building sustainable value. Emphasis on building.
Let’s take Boston University as an example. For reference, Boston University is a large organization – a student body of nearly 37,000, approaching a half-million alumni, over 10,000 employees, including over 4,000 faculty. It’s big. It’s an organization.
I’ll be borrowing from a recent article published by BU Today in this blog post. The title is intriguing: “No Gas. No Fuels. No Emissions. BU’s Greenest Building Ever”.
The Link
Boston University has published a Climate Action Plan, which aims to reduce the University’s carbon emissions to net zero by 2040. That’s a University-wide goal, tied to the University’s mission statement.
“We envision a sustainable and equitable future where environmental, social, and economic conditions foster health and well-being for all people and the natural world, where all living beings have the resources they need to thrive. Boston University will reflect these conditions by serving as a model, locally and globally, through its leadership in climate action and knowledge sharing.’
So that’s the foundation here. And I use the word foundation quite intentionally and dad-joke-ingly.
The Project
The project to which I am referring is a building needs not only an aspirational foundation but a physical foundation. And as you’ll see, it’s also what’s UNDER the foundation that counts. The project is Boston University’s Center for Computing and Data Sciences, pictured below.
Here are six features that help this project’s outcome – a building – deliver value that is linked to the organization’s mission.
- Geothermal wells
- Heating and cooling is accomplished via thirty one (!) 1500-foot deep wells, using heat pumps to warm the building in winter and cool it in summer. Below are a couple of photos showing the start of the drilling and one of the 31 wells.
- Shades
- Fixed shades prevent direct sunlight from entering the building during the day
- Windows
- Triple glazed for outstanding insulating capabilities
- Odor-free materials
- Considering the air quality inside the building and avoiding toxic chemicals
- Irresistible staircases
- Improving social interaction and exercise with sweeping, interesting, wide, almost Hogwarts-like stairways. Here’s a photo:
- Consideration for rising water levels
- The building is very close to the River Charles, so it takes into account the possibility of flooding and water rise.
These are the sustainability-related features but what are the overall characteristics of the building?
From Boston University’s own website, here’s the lowdown:
Designed by KPMB Architects in Toronto to serve BU’s sustainability goals, and built by Suffolk Construction, the $305 million center is 19 stories (or 305 feet) tall and has nearly 350,000 square feet of floor space. What most people talk about is its unusual and controversial profile of cantilevered sections rising above the campus and the Charles River like a giant stack of books (BU leadership’s preference) or a precarious game of Jenga (everyone else’s).
The Value
Some like it – some hate it – but aside from the unique appearance, you cannot deny that it is an example of building sustainable value!
Posted
by
Richard Maltzman
on: December 13, 2022 10:18 PM |
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